Sculptor® is a commercially available software tool, based on an Arbitrary Shape Design (ASD), which allows the user to perform shape optimization for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) design. The developed software tool provides important advances in the state-of-the-art of automatic CFD shape...

There is a need to acquire autonomously cryogenic hydrocarbon liquid sample from remote planetary locations such as the lakes of Titan for instruments such as mass spectrometers. There are several problems that had to be solved relative to collecting the right amount of...

The presence of the Poisson Spot, also known as the spot of Arago, has been known since the 18th century. This spot is the consequence of constructive interference of light diffracted by the edge of the obstacle where the central position can be determined by symmetry of the...

Multiphase turbulent flows are encountered in many practical applications including turbine engines or natural phenomena involving particle dispersion. Numerical computations of multiphase turbulent flows are important because they provide a cheaper alternative to...

The SynGenics Optimization System (SynOptSys) software application optimizes a product with respect to multiple, competing criteria using statistical Design of Experiments, Response-Surface Methodology, and the Desirability Optimization Methodology. The user is not required to be skilled in the underlying...

This innovation is a compact, superconducting, channelizing bandpass filter on a single-crystal (0.45 μm thick) silicon substrate, which operates from 300 to 600 GHz. This device consists of four channels with center frequencies of 310, 380, 460, and 550 GHz, with approximately...

Space mission architects are often challenged with knowing which investment in technology infusion will have the highest return. Certification-based analysis (CBA) gives architects and technologists a means to communicate the risks and advantages of infusing technologies at various points in a process. Various...

A document describes designing, building, testing, and certifying a customized crane (Lifting Device — LD) with a strong back (cradle) to facilitate the installation of long wall panels and short door panels for the GHe phase of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

This technology development originated from the need to assess the debris threat resulting from soil material erosion induced by landing spacecraft rocket plume impingement on extraterrestrial planetary surfaces. The impact of soil debris was observed to be highly detrimental during...

Planar arrays of waveguide-fed slots have been employed in many radar and remote sensing applications. Such arrays are designed in the standing wave configuration because of high efficiency. Traveling wave arrays can produce greater bandwidth at the expense of efficiency due to power...

A methodology for designing spacecraft trajectories in any gravitational environment within the solar system has been developed. The methodology facilitates modeling and optimization for problems ranging from that of a single spacecraft orbiting a single celestial body to that of a mission...

A paper describes the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), a QWIP-based instrument intended to supplement the Operational Land Imager (OLI) for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). The TIRS instrument is a far-infrared imager operating in the push-broom mode with two IR channels:...